


not so above it all

by izadreamer



Series: Internal Tangles [3]
Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure, Tangled (2010), Tangled: The Series (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Study, During Canon, Friends to Enemies, Gen, Guilt, Mistakes, Post-Betrayal, Regret, Resolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 03:07:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14824055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izadreamer/pseuds/izadreamer
Summary: In the aftermath of Varian stealing the Sundrop Flower, Rapunzel must come to terms with the betrayal of a friend, and the role she played in his destruction.





	not so above it all

**Author's Note:**

> We aren’t given a reason or an excuse for why Rapunzel never visited Varian after the storm (especially if she was so worried about him!!). So, this is my take on it. I still think it's more in-character for Rapunzel to immediately have gone after Varian once the storm was over, but I feel this explanation might serve as well.

Long after the sun has set, Rapunzel is still awake.

She should sleep—she knows this intimately, well aware of how exhausted she will be in the morning if she does not—but every time she closes her eyes, something awful curls in her gut and seizes her breath. She feels sick to her stomach, head spinning in circles and mouth dry and clammy. She’s exhausted, but no matter how hard she tries, sleep doesn’t come. She just sits in sweltering sheets and tosses and turns until she dozes in a feverish haze, jolted back into awareness by the slightest sound.

Guilt, Rapunzel thinks, is an emotion that allows for no rest.

It’s only been a few hours since that disaster of a day, but the pain still cuts as deeply as it did back then. The look on her father’s face when he realized what Rapunzel had done. The worry in her mother’s eyes. The disdain in Varian’s voice, a boy she’d seen as a friend, as he laughed in her face and said, “I used you.”

Rapunzel snarls under her breath, casting her blanket off in a sudden fury. Pascal squeaks in alarm, ducking to dodge the flying sheets. Rapunzel whirls off the bed and grabs fistfuls of the soft fabric, ripping her many blankets free from the mattress and throwing them in a heaping pile on the floor. She stands over them, her bed bare and pillows strewn across the room, her chest heaving, her hands curled into shaking fists.

As quickly as it came, the anger drains out of her, leaving her feeling washed-out and faintly ashamed. She looks down at the sheets, and all she can think is that it didn’t really solve anything at all, that she is still angry and hurt and damnably guilty, and now in the morning the maids will come in and have to clean all this up, and Rapunzel is such a _child—_

It would be easy to pick up the sheets, or rather, it should be easy, but suddenly it seems like the hardest thing in the world. Her small room spins before her eyes, the walls closing in on her at all sides. The air is heavy and hot and suffocating. For a moment it almost looks like her tower.

Her breath catches in her throat, and before she even realizes what she’s doing, Rapunzel slams open the door to her balcony, almost tripping in her haste to escape the room. The slap of cold air is like a wake-up call, and Rapunzel hunches over her knees, breathing heavily, sweat cooling on her brow. For a moment, she thinks she might be sick, nausea roiling in her gut.

The moment passes, and slowly but surely, the night air brings Rapunzel back to herself, eases the feverish flush in her skin and chases the last haunting dreams from her head. She wanders in a daze to her balcony railing, bare feet pressing against cool stone. She lifts one hand to the railing to steady herself, the rock blessedly cold against her palm.

The city sprawls out below her, rolling hills and black ocean on the horizon. The sky is dark, heavy clouds having rolled in with the sunset and hiding the moon from view. The whole city seems blanketed in darkness, the shadows long and deep, swallowing up the last lingering lights. Even the usual streetlamps seem dimmed, their glow faint and near invisible to Rapunzel’s eyes, so far away up in the castle.

She cannot help but feel this is an omen of sorts.

Even though she cannot see it, Rapunzel knows what lies beyond the water, beyond the graceful dip of the mountains and hills. Her tower used to stand there, hidden in the cliffs. Varian and the Sundrop Flower are there now. All of them lost to her.

 _Happy birthday to me,_ Rapunzel thinks, glaring down at the city below and blinking furious tears from her eyes. _Your childhood home is destroyed, your dad is lying to you, you committed treason…_

She squeezes her eyes shut, breath hitching and fingers digging into the stone railing of her balcony, but hot and angry tears slip free anyway, uncomfortably warm on her cold cheeks, agonizingly slow as they trail down the creases on her face, plopping from her chin onto her hands.

_…And you lost a friend._

She bows over the railing, arms trembling, fighting back the sudden and overwhelming urge to break down in tears for real. She’s been fighting the breakdown all day, the tears and the anger and the ugly helplessness that’s been boiling in her blood like a restless curse.

Rapunzel takes a deep breath, the cold air stinging her throat, and wipes the tears away with the tips of her fingers, gently, carefully, calmly. She won’t break down again. Once in a day is enough. She has already cried over this, sobbed quietly into her arms when the day caught up with her. Eugene had found her then, comforted her, wiped away her tears.

_“It’s not your fault, Rapunzel.”_

She is so grateful to him, for saying that, for being there. Rapunzel had needed those words, even if now, with some time and perspective, she can admit that they are not wholly true. But at the time they had been a balm on an ugly wound.

Now, even if it is only hours since then, in the cold winter air and away from the small walls of her room, Rapunzel can reflect. It hurts her still, but the bite of the cold and the dark night lets her breathe.

 _“Everyone turned their backs on me!”_ Varian had told her, only six hours ago. Rapunzel knows that isn’t really true. She suspects Varian knows that too. There is no way all of Corona denied him, not every single person. She knows this because she knows Corona… and, too, because she once knew Varian. Anger in his voice when speaking about Corona. But betrayal, thick and awful and ugly, when speaking about her.

“ _Sorry, Princess… but I know firsthand how well you keep your promises.”_

Rapunzel doesn’t know what happened to Varian’s father, how he came to be entombed, though she has her suspicions. What she does know is this—in that moment, Varian was right. No matter Rapunzel’s good intentions, no matter how sorry she was… she had broken her promise to him. Not just that day during the storm, when she turned him away. But every day since then, too, every day that passed that she didn’t go to see him, to help him, to drag him away. When it comes to Varian, Rapunzel has broken her oath so thoroughly not even an apology can make up for what she’s done.

The worst part is, she doesn’t even have a good reason. She had been scared, and so she’d stayed away. Those two days as Queen had gutted Rapunzel, tortured her, twisted her inside and out. She couldn’t paint, she couldn’t make choices, and every time she thought about Varian, about the desperation in his voice and the fear in his eyes, and told herself, _go, go now, he needs you…_ she hadn’t. The fear had risen in her throat and her feet had stayed glued to the smooth castle tiles.

Even later, she hadn’t dared. It was too late, then, and she told herself going now would only make things worse. Or that, if he still needed her, Varian would come again. Or that maybe he was angry with her—as he was right to be—and staying away deliberately, and she should respect that.

It had seemed so logical at the time. Now, having seen the amber tomb of Varian’s father and seen the lengths Varian is willing to go to save him, having heard the fury in his voice as he blamed her and the kingdom… now, Rapunzel can see those words for what they really are.

Excuses, to hide her own fear.

Rapunzel has screwed up. She knows this. She has failed, utterly and miserably. She has let Varian down, turned her back on him however unintentional it may have been, and she has lost his friendship forever. How funny, that she discovers this now. Too little and too late.

She rocks back on her heels, tilting her face towards the sky. Thinking of Varian is painful, like someone has taken a knife and stabbed it into her chest, then grabbed the hilt and kept twisting. Awful, and ugly.

She exhales slowly into the night air, watching her breath fog and mist. A soft squeak draws her eyes back down to the railing. Pascal stares up at her, eyes wide, skin turned pale green at the cold. He must have followed her when she left the room.

“Oh, Pascal,” Rapunzel says, and reaches for him. He crawls on her hand and up her arm, his small spiky face butting at her cheek. She laughs wetly and cups him gently with her hand to protect him from the wind.

“I’ve screwed up,” Rapunzel whispers to him, blinking back tears at the admission. “I’ve screwed up so bad, Pascal. And the worst part is, I don’t think I’ll be the only one paying for it.” She stares out blindly at her city, her people, her friends and family sleeping soundly in the dark. “I’ve put everyone I love in danger.”

Pascal squeaks a sharp disagreement, tail smacking her ear.

“It’s my fault,” Rapunzel argues back, voice ragged with the effort of holding back her tears. “It’s all my fault, Pascal. I—I should have helped Varian, I should have kept my promise, but I— I didn’t. I let him down. And now…”

Pascal chirps again, tail poking her cheek.

“Of course I didn’t know,” Rapunzel whispers. “But I still helped him steal it. And I— he’s right, maybe if I had gone with him then, or…”

Pascal croons at her.

Rapunzel wipes hard at her eyes. “You don’t know that,” she says. “I’m sure… the kingdom could have… the snow wasn’t so bad that…” She can’t finish. She knows it’s not true. Her eyes drop to the railing. “I should have gone after,” she says finally. “When the snow was gone. I should have… I should have.”

Pascal’s small head rubs against her cheek in comfort. Rapunzel stares down at the city.

“I should have,” she says again, and takes a deep breath. “But I didn’t. And now… Varian, he’s going to hurt all those people. They don’t deserve that. They don’t…” She trails off. “It’s not right. It’s not _right_. It’s not their fault. I get why he’s angry at me, but everyone else—!”

Pascal waits. Rapunzel turns and brings the small chameleon to her face. “He’s angry,” she says, finally. “He’s grieving. But… I can’t let him hurt all those people. That— no matter his reasons. That… isn’t right.”

Pascal gives Rapunzel his best approximation of a smile, tongue flicking out at her nose, startling her into laughter. She feels relieved. A weight has lifted from her shoulders.

The pain, the guilt, the sting of Varian’s betrayal— it isn’t gone, exactly, isn’t even dulled. But she can push past it now. She can breathe a little easier, having come to this choice. Rapunzel is at fault here, yes. But she is not wholly responsible. She may have let Varian down, she may have broken her promise, but that is no excuse for what he’s done or what he will do. Loss is never an excuse for hurting others.

Varian has poisoned the castle staff, betrayed the trust of his friends, and stolen the Sundrop Flower for his own gains. He has sworn revenge on people who had nothing to do with his grief. She may have pushed him to it, but it was Varian’s choices, in the end, that have led them to this point. He has chosen his path, and now Rapunzel must choose hers.

“Thank you, Pascal,” Rapunzel says, and turns back to her room. “I know what I have to do.”

She doesn’t have all the answers, not yet. No real solution, no real way of winning. But she has courage, and heart, and her friends—and the promises she has yet to break, the promises she will make sure stay fulfilled, especially now that she knows the cost of breaking one.

Rapunzel has resolve, and for now, it is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> It is so, so hard to try and face someone you feel you’ve wronged, especially if you’re afraid something awful happened to them because of it. I’ve done the same thing myself. Sometimes it easier to just… tell yourself they’ll come to /you/ when they are ready, rather than seek them out and be hurt… but ultimately that never solves anything. 
> 
> I may not agree with how the show handled it, but I like how it shows Rapunzel as… well, human. She makes mistakes. Not just funny mistakes, but big, horrible mistakes. And she is learning how to pick herself back up and deal with them head-on. I love it, I love it so much.
> 
> [Link to Rec and Reblog?](http://izaswritings.tumblr.com/post/174485134097/title-not-so-above-it-all-synopsis-in-the) Also, if you have any questions or just want to talk, [my tumblr](http://izaswritings.tumblr.com) is always open!!
> 
> Any thoughts?


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